The Politics of Polio

Tony had polio. I presume he was one of the thousands of children who contracted the disease during the epidemic in the mid-twentieth century. Like most self-conscious adults, however, I never asked him about it.

His right leg was stiff. He walked with a cane. Once I got to know him, I hardly noticed it. His quick humor and keen insight quickly captured my affection.

As best I recall, he only spoke about his condition once. We were camping together on the Mogollon Rim. Have you ever noticed that stepping out of the world of asphalt and concrete, and into the world of trees and cool breezes opens your heart and clears your mind? It refreshes the spirit like a dive in a pool on a sweaty hot day.

Anyway, Tony and I were having one of those philosophical discussions that typically emerge in such settings. He was an avid reader and excellent teacher; I always enjoyed our conversations.

I related to him a discussion I had with another friend of mine, who a hard time accepting the existence of a personal God. He surmised that there was a cosmic life force, but the idea of a single God with Personality who ruled the earth? Not convinced. He was more comfortable with a divine earth than with a divine creator.

When I shared this with Tony, he said, “Suppose he is right; there is no personal God outside the universe. Who determines right and wrong? What is the basis for morality?”

I had asked my friend about this once, so I had a ready reply. “He would say that the survival of the species is hard-wired into our collective consciousness. What is good for the whole of the universe is the standard for right and wrong.”

“But who decides this?” Tony pressed. “Do you decide? Do I decide? The government? Which government?”

When I affirmed Tony’s point, he continued, “Your friend’s evolutionary hypothesis assumes there is no objective standard for right and wrong. The truth is, questions about good and evil are ultimately irrelevant in your friend’s world view.”

“You seem pretty worked up about this, Tony,” I observed. “Why is that?”

“I’ve heard the argument before,” he said. “We think that we can have an objective standard for morality by merely appealing to the greater good of human consciousness. But this is the forbidden fruit which has made humans a god to themselves. Without a personal God, there is no inherent good or evil, there is no right or wrong. Think about it, Steve: if the universe is amoral, can anything be fundamentally immoral?"

“Ivan and his religious brother were discussing this very issue in ‘The Brothers Karamazov’,” I interjected. “Based upon the injustice in the world, Ivan believed there was no God. But the thought frightened him, for as he said, ‘Without God, everything is permissible.’”

“Exactly,” Tony replied. “Without God, the holocaust is not immoral, and the genocide of Stalin is inevitable. There is no objective morality outside the whim of human fancy, no protection for the weak and defenseless, and no inherent value to human life.

“In fact,” he said with a wave of his cane, “without God, there is nothing to protect the life of a little boy with a bum leg.”